


With Love

by gloamings



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1969776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloamings/pseuds/gloamings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, Five Times Tony Tells Pepper He Loves Her, and The One Time He Really Means It.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Love

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a huge thanks to [Jordan](http://tonystarksass.tumblr.com/) for her help in coming up with all the ways Tony would casually profess his love for Pepper.

Pepper is adjusting to her new position -- and her new nickname -- rather well. There’s less mindless paperwork, which she enjoys, but there are a lot more mundane errands to run. Like getting Tony’s morning coffee.

Of course, he could be a reasonable boss and be fine with the coffee in the breakroom that everyone else happily drank, but then he wouldn’t be Tony Stark.

Each morning, she stops by a local coffee joint that’s about two blocks down from Stark Industries to pick up Tony’s standard drink: a large red eye. This morning, though, she asks for two espresso shots instead of one -- she knows Tony’s on the verge of a new breakthrough in targeting technology and hasn’t been sleeping. Well, he never really sleeps, she’s finding out. But he’s definitely sleeping way less.

She’s actually very proud of how much he’s been working recently. As she waits for the espresso to finish brewing, she eyes a particularly tasty-looking cheese danish and gets the barista to bag up two of them. One is for her (she forgot breakfast) and the other will be for Tony, as sort of a reward for his hard work this week. Maybe, she wonders, if she loads him up with positive reinforcement, he might be this productive all the time.

He’s already in his office when she knocks on the door, coffee and pastry in hand.

“Mmm,” she hears him grunt, and takes this as an invitation to come in.

“Good morning, Mr Stark,” she says brightly. Tony’s bent over the desk, hair disheveled, a large blueprint spread in front of him.

“Uh huh,” he says distractedly, taking out a pencil from between his teeth to erase some notes.

“You have two meetings today,” she recites, walking over to his desk and placing the coffee and danish on a blueprint-free section. “The first one is in an hour, and the second is at 1 PM.”

“Good, good, that’s it,” he says, scribbling furiously on the blueprint, clearly talking about his work and not to Pepper.

She stands there for a few more moments as he writes, watching his brows furrow and his other hand come up to rub at his slightly overgrown goatee. He scoots to the edge of his chair and scrunches his nose, intensely focused on his work. She can’t help but smile -- this is really the first time she’s seen the genius side of Tony Stark, and it’s pretty cute.

Realizing that she isn’t going to get a response from Tony any time soon, she turns to leave.

“Hey,” he says as she reaches the door. She looks over her shoulder at him.

He’s finally looked up from his work and is waving the danish around.

“Did you get me this?” he asks, somewhat incredulously, as if no one had ever given him something he didn’t explicitly ask for.

“It’s Friday,” she says, smiling and turning around to look at him, “plus, you’ve been working for three days straight and probably haven’t eaten in two.”

He takes a large bite of the danish and moans, closing his eyes.

“Oh my god,” he says, his mouth full of pastry, eyes still closed, “this is delicious. Is this --?”

“Yes, it’s from Kelly’s,” she supplies as he shoves the rest of the danish into his mouth and leans back in his chair.

“Wow,” he says once he’s swallowed, licking the tips of his fingers, “I love you, Potts. Seriously. Can we start planning the wedding?”

“Was it really that good?” she says with a laugh, blushing involuntarily at Tony’s proclamation of love.

“Is that a yes?” he counters, now reaching for the coffee cup and taking a long sip. “I think we can probably drop by the courthouse after my meeting this afternoon…”

“I appreciate the offer,” she says, turning around to leave his office again, “but I have to decline.”

“Your loss, Potts!” he calls after her as she closes the door.

She settles back at her desk and takes a bite of her own danish -- it really is amazingly tasty.

She’s not sure she would propose to anyone over it, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Rating and tags likely to change as I write the rest of these scenarios -- check back in soon for more!


End file.
